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O R A. T I O N" 



DELIVERKD BEFORE THE 



MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES 



CITIZENS OF PROVIDENCE, 



ON THE EIGHTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 



AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE 



JULY 4, 1861. 



BY SAMUEL L. CALDWELL, D. I). 



PROVIDENCE: 

KNOWLES, ANTHONY & CO., PRINTERS. 
1861. 



OEATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES 



CITIZENS OF PROVIDENCE, 



ON THE EIGHTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 



AIEKICAN INDEPENDENCE, 



JULY 4, 1861. 



BY SAMUEL L. CALDWELL, D. D. 



PROVIDENCE: 

KNOWLES, ANTHONY & CO., PRINTERS. 

1861. 






CITY OF PROVIDENCE. 

By the City Council, July 8, 1861 — 

Resolved, That the Committee appointed to make arrangements for the 
Municipal Celebration of the anniversary of American Independence, be 
and they are hereby authorized to request of the Rev. Dr. Caldwell, a copy 
of the Oration delivered by him, on the fourth instant, and to cause the same 
to be published in pamphlet form, for the use of the City Council. 

Attest, 

SAMUEL W. BROWN, 

City Clerk. 



■ 

^UG 2 5 1932 



ORATION. 



It were a serious and unreasonable breach of public 
duty to suspend the usual observance of this clay. I 
know not that grave perils, or solemn duties, that any- 
thing but conscious shame, should sober its usual and fes- 
tal joy. The past, at least, is secure. The day has won 
its prescriptive and immortal right of separation from all 
days, at the top of our calendar, at the head of our his- 
tory. The Revolution, of which the Declaration which 
has just been read was the written justification to the 
nations and to history, is a fact accomplished ; safe and 
sacred in the recollections of America, in the honor of 
the human race. It has passed the audit of time, and 
the judgment of civilized man ; its spirit, its methods, 
its heroes, its results, justify it to all ages ; while it 
would seem that its issues can be opened never again. 
Fragments falling from us might indeed go back to the 
old dependence ; for such seems the inevitable direction 



of the schismatic States. Carolina planters, sick of de- 
mocracy, over their rare Madeira, may sigh for 

" The good old Colony times, 
When we lived under a king," 

and propose to take one of England's rather redundant 
supply of royal heirs in exchange for a blockaded cot- 
ton crop. Divided sovereignty is likely to bring back 
Europe into America, and for no good result ; unless to 
fight over again the old issue. But if that comes, it 
will not come first ; and whatever comes, whatever the 
future may undo, whatever lies angry in this imme- 
diate present, there lies behind us, in its calm morning 
glory, the Eevolution. This day comes, bringing that 
in its first and ancient grandeur, mighty with its un- 
spent inspirations. Whatever is lost, this remains. 
Whatever is disputed, whatever has departed, the glory 
has not gone out of the day, any more than the clay 
has gone out of the year. It gives us the benefit of 
its unsullied example. It tells what America was. It 
comes, still wearing on its head this great and holy 
memory, undiminished by disaster, unhonored only by 
the unworthy. Nothing which comes after can dis- 
crown or stain it. It has passed into the high and se- 
rene heaven of history, to be reached by mortal change 
no more. 

It returns, indeed, as it never came ; itself the same, 
to look into the face of a new and kindred hour. All 
at once it finds a time with pulses mated to its own, 
great with similar duties, pregnant with vaster issues. 



It has been coming every year, and handsome words, 
and much powder, and the clanging bells have given it 
the honor which is in the air, and lasts its hour. For a 
day, we remembered that once liberty was put into the 
pinch of a real struggle, and found men who did not 
fail her. And it seemed as if they had done the work 
for all generations, and nothing was left for us but a 
holiday. But at last the tide resurges, and fills the day 
with new meaning. We are finding that no generation 
is allowed to anticipate its successor, to take all ques- 
tions into its single decision. Their duty was done, and 
they are dust. But ours stands waiting. Liberty, and 
not that only, but all that goes with it, nursed by it, or 
making for it a larger, and a better home ; the national 
life of America, is put upon us to carry, for our short 
hour, to meet its exigencies, such as God, in his order, 
brings. They, four score and five years ago, turned one 
of the sharp corners of history, and now, the stress and 
sharpness of another difficult passage comes to us. We 
stand before the future, as they did, in the jaws of a 
great crisis in the civilization of America, at the turning 
point and head of a new era ; unless we are faithful as 
they, at the end of what they begun. 

For the Revolution was the beginning and usher of 
a new era. It was preparatory to a work great as itself. 
It was but one of the steps, forward and decisive indeed, 
in the construction of a new society, in the begetting 
and life of a nation. 

It came as a political, a providential necessity, pre- 



pared through all the antecedent history, precipitating 
tendencies and attractions, long held in solution. It 
was predestined in a thousand causes, and chiefly in the 
spirit of the people from the start. Says De Tocque- 
ville, u Methinks I see the destiny of America embodied 
in the first puritan who landed on these shores, just as 
the human race was represented by the first man." 
The free spirit was always here. It blew the May- 
flower westward, stronger than any Atlantic wind. It 
set its front of resistance always against aggression, 
firm as the shores against the Atlantic wave. Inde- 
pendence did not begin with the declaration of it. 
George the Third only provoked into overt resistance, 
the temper which came here with Winthrop and Will- 
iams ; which was always jealous ; which for a century 
and a half had grown to be a habit of the people ; 
which Burke boldly told Parliament was " unalter- 
able by any human art." The Revolution was latent 
always in their breasts, and when events were ripe for 
it, it came. It came almost without intention. They 
did not mean independence, hi the beginning. They 
meant remonstrance. " They builded better than they 
knew." It is Providence which is wiser than man, look- 
ing over his head, and bringing out of his meaning its 
own ; out of our conflict of to-day, ends disavowed, and 
it may be, unexpected. 

So far as the origin of the Revolution dates in any 
visible event, we are now closing the century since it 
was born. In 1761, just one hundred years ago, John 



Adams heard James Otis argue against the writs of as- 
sistance in the old Town House in Boston ; and dated 
from that hour, the beginning of the Revolution. 
" American Independence was then and there born." 
In the same year, 1761, Eichard Henry Lee, the mover 
of Independence fifteen years later, was making his 
first recorded speech in the Legislature of Virginia, 
full of generous ardor for human freedom, against that 
great crime of Great Britain, charged so solemnly 
against her in Jefferson's original draught of the De- 
claration, of forcing the trade in slaves upon the colo- 
nies. The Legislature of Virginia in 1861, does not 
well honor the anniversary of her first opening of the 
Revolution. It will not answer for Great Britain, after 
a century of human progress, to allow the interests of 
trade to lead her into her old mistake, and provoke a 
new grudge. 

But, as the Revolution did not begin with itself, it 
did not end with itself. It came out of Providential 
necessities ; so new necessities came out of it, and after 
it. It severed a false and injurious connection, which 
allowed no national character and life ; while it brought 
into being the possibility and the necessity of that. 
This was the great problem which issued out of the 
struggles of Revolution. Independence pointed fur- 
ther than itself. It was not enough. It left a people 
free, but unequal to their destiny. It contained the 
necessity and prophecy of a government, of " a more 
perfect union," of a nation. The free spirit was here ; 



8 

the elements of a great and free State ; the possibili- 
ties of a national life, grand as the continent which, 
through the ages, God had reserved for it ; into which 
should enter the choice blood, and the richest forces of 
modern civilization ; which should cast itself into such 
institutions as best reflect human intelligence, as best 
promote human benefit. And the problem was one of 
organization, to organize liberty into government, a 
people into a nation, and all nebulous and chaotic ele- 
ments into planetary order and movement. By revo- 
lution the noxious element of foreign authority had 
been expelled. But the creative, constructive work 
remained ; if, indeed, it is not still on hand. A great 
Providential experiment was opened, with terms so 
grand, with an aim so above all precedent, involving in 
its process such difficulties, in its success such benefit, 
in its failure such disaster, that it summons to itself 
our noblest virtues, and the anxieties of the whole 
world. It is our Providential calling and destiny to be 
a nation, with undivided sovereignty, a common soil, 
and common laws, vital in every part with the same 
instincts and aspirations. This was the question facing 
our fathers instantly in the very act for which we are 
doing them honor, — whether they would accept their 
destiny, and come into such terms as should fix it in 
one organic, indissoluble commonwealth. They had 
hardly an election. Common dangers, common as well 
as conflicting interests, political necessities, necessities 
in history, geography, language, blood, as well as events, 



forced them together, into unity of government, as a 
condition of other and more spiritual unity. The effort 
of that age of our history, to throw off the disease 
which came of British rule, was not more admirable, 
perhaps was really less essential to our progress, than 
the effort which followed, to grasp all existing possibili- 
ties of union, and knit them into an organized State. 
The crisis of revolution was followed by the crisis of 
crystallization. The loose bonds were tightened. At- 
tractions were combined, repulsions reduced, remote 
and opposite interests balanced and adjusted ; and a 
single articulated sovereignty came forth, to which the 
hopes, the aspirations, the powers and the destiny of a 
free people were committed. Into a new constitution of 
government, most nicely balancing local and general 
powers, was put the rich freight of American national- 
ity and American civilization. 

The experiment has been magnificent, and it has 
been difficult. It has been an attempt to manage, on a 
vast scale, the most complicated, and often contending 
forces. It covers a vast and spreading space, — the width, 
it may be, prospectively the length of a continent; 
liable, therefore, to fly apart, from its very greatness, 
like the revolving stone of the cutler. Reduced, as 
distance and separation are, by the improved methods of 
modern locomotion — so that in some respects the coun- 
try is smaller, with all its growth, than when its people 
were this side of the Alleghanies, — still its very geog- 
raphy necessitates social and industrial and personal 
2 



10 

differences. The vast geographic distances are offset 
indeed, as also are social and political oppositions, by 
controlling laws of geography, which forbid the section 
of the country simply by a surveyor's line. One lan- 
guage, also, is paramount and almost universal, and no 
lines of religion are interposed to make enemies of 
States and sections. The influences and tendencies of 
a common civilization, — often more potent than any 
compact of law, — commerce, religion, literature, educa- 
tion, travel, all intercourses by road or mail, serve to 
wear away the edges of collision, while they assimilate 
and unify the remote and strange populations. 

But, in the beginning, the thirteen States had been 
for generations autonomies, each with its local interests 
and passions ; almost nationalities by themselves ; as 
much so as the States of Germany or of Italy ; and it 
is not easy to blend and merge such centres of local 
attachment and sovereignty into one ; as Charles the 
Fifth found it about as hard to make all his clocks 
strike at once, as to govern all the contending elements 
of his empire. The spirit of nationality, the loyalty to 
national authority, the influence of national institutions 
and laws, the cohesive power at the centre are liable to 
be reduced, and in some junctures over-borne, by lo<ml 
pride, and the jealous individualism of separate States. 
The divisive, centrifugal forces are always waiting 
their time, till at last they seem to have found it. It is 
only in theory, and in contemplation of law that we are 
one. In fact, a crude and heterogeneous mass is here 



11 

trying to blend and coalesce ; alien and native popula- 
tions, habits of thinking and life, narrow contempts and 
sour prejudices, material and political interests, diverse 
and dividing, and the spirit of democratic freedom in 
all, to be organized into a consentaneous and power- 
ful nation. Says DeTocqueville, " The dangers which 
threaten the American Union do not originate in the 
diversity of interests, or of opinions ; but in the various 
characters and passions of the Americans." 

More closely implicated than anything else in the 
experiment of nationality here, is the presence of a 
servile race, and the type of civilization it has pro- 
duced. For while other difficulties have given way 
under the general influences of our civilization, while 
many repugnancies and many omens of danger, which 
existed in the beginning, have passed out of sight, this 
has emerged to complicate our difficulties, and endan- 
ger our experiment, as nothing else. By inevitable so- 
cial laws, I might say, by the eternal laws which God 
has planted in the human soul, such an institution could 
not be at peace in the mixed conditions under which 
our national life goes on. It is anomalous, to say the 
least, in a democratic state ; in the judgment of Christ- 
endom it is immoral and pernicious ; the instincts of 
human nature, and the tendencies of our civilization are 
against it. Right or wrong, for better or worse, it has 
entered the structure of society in half the States, and 
of course, created there a style of life, manners, civil- 
ization peculiar to itself. And so, under the act of Un- 



12 

ion, in the bonds of a common national covenant and 
life, are married, for better or worse, two radically dis- 
tinct civilizations. The one is of the past, and draws 
backward, and keeps society behind ; the other goes 
with time, is of the nineteenth century rather than the 
twelfth, and by a law strong as the winds, and inevita- 
ble as gravity, must possess and rule the future. In 
the inevitable friction of two forms of society thus 
lying side by side, and by necessities of the case oppug- 
nant, it has happened that both the pliancy and stiff- 
ness of our institutions have been tried. At any rate, 
thus has been precipitated the dread issue, in which it is 
to be tried whether we are two nations or one ; whether 
the secret and unwritten laws of our national life, are 
inconsistent with the Constitution ; whether for this 
one and only reason under heaven, we shall dissolve ; 
whether this shall outweigh all reasons, necessities, as- 
pirations for unity and nationality ; whether the old 
struggle between central and local, between State and 
Nation, complicating itself with an institution anteda- 
ting Independence, imperious in its nature and habit, 
and loyal only to its own law, and not to the Common- 
wealth, shall now at last break through the walls of con- 
stitutional order which are the security of us all, and 
bring down our national authority into the dust. This 
is the exigency ; this we have on h and ; this is the duty 
high, clear, inevitable as that of Seventy-six, to reinte- 
grate the Union, into which our fathers fought their way 
through the Revolution. And it would seem as if we 



13 

were to do it on the same terms — may it be in the 
same courageous and persistent spirit ! Not by our 
election, we are compelled to try force, and by that to 
vindicate, if we cannot restore, national order and au- 
thority. If we succeed, it will be worth what it costs. 
If we fail, we shall save our honor, and be ready to be- 
gin again. The problem, which, through all our history, 
we have been trying to work out in peace, must now 
be settled by the ordeal of battle. So rebellion wills. 
So Providence orders, — for it allows no option but a base 
and a fatal one. So be it ! 

" Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife ! 
To all the sensual world proclaim — 
One crowded hour of glorious life 
Is worth an age without a name." 

War is an evil, and a terrible one. But it may be 
the least of evils. It is to be accepted by us as a terri- 
ble necessity, only better than disintegration and na- 
tional death. It is to stop when peace will do better ; 
as soon as national authority will stand upright in its 
throne, without a cordon of bayonets. But it ought 
not to stop till one thing is settled, as perhaps only the 
heaviest artillery can settle it, viz : Whether this is a 
government, or only a temporary agreement, to be re- 
ceded from at will ; whether what was bought on so 
many fields of trouble, shall be sold without our con- 
sent, at Montgomery or Richmond ; whether the Amer- 
ican people is only an encampment of squatters, chang- 
ing allegiance according to inclination, or whether it is 



14 

a nation, with an organic life, with a history, and a re- 
sponsibility, and a destiny, a vital creature, " with large 
discourse of reason, looking before and after." The 
questions in issue go to the foundations of society, of 
law, order, of morals and of human well-being. It is 
whether our liberty is a regulated, constitutional liberty, 
regarding oaths and compacts, or the lawless liberty of 
Bedouins and Saint Antoine. It is whether the State is 
an extemporary contract, its government resting on 
chance consent, and liable to be dissolved at the pleasure 
of any party in it, or whether it's powers are ordained of 
God, loyalty to it a moral obligation, and revolution the 
last desperate remedy against a government intolerably 
bad. A State, and in this I mean the Union, as the 
true and supreme State, is a perpetual, organic creature, 
from which, by its very nature and vital law, there can 
be no secession at will. Says Mr. Burke, in his Eeflec- 
tions on the French Ke volution : 

" The State ought not to be considered as nothing 
better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pep- 
per and coffee, calico and tobacco, or some other such 
low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary in- 
terest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. 
It is to be looked on with other reverence ; because it 
is not a partnership in things subservient to the gross 
animal existence, of a temporary and perishable nature. 
It is a partnership in all science ; a partnership in all 
art ; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. 
As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained 



15 

but in many generations, it becomes a partnership not 
only between those who are living, but between those 
who are living and those who are dead, and those who 
are to be born. Each contract of each State is but a 
clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, 
linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting 
the visible with the invisible world." 

This, fellow citizens, we shall settle for all time to 
come, for whatever country is left to be governed by 
our Constitution, — that secession means violence, revo- 
lution, and is not to be undertaken but at the hazard 
of civil war, and being slain with " a sword bathed in , 
heaven." This we shall settle, and must, — that the sov- 
ereignty of the United States is undivided and indivis- 
ible ; that there is no double allegiance ; that there can 
be no provincial loyalty to Virginia or Rhode Island, 
which releases from loyalty to the country, and to the 
whole country. This, we shall settle, — that the election 
of the people according to the Constitution, cannot be 
trifled with, whoever is offended by it. We fight for 
the sacredness of the ballot box, and well we may. It 
is the depository of the nation's will, the necessary in- 
strument of peaceful liberty. Say the worst you can 
of its decisions, despise as you may the creatures that 
often come out of it, — like Noah's ark, clean and unclean 
things may go into it, two and two, — still it is the ark 
which carries our fortunes, and keeps our liberties through 
the deluge. Go forth, then, ye sacred legions, who war 
upon this insurrection against the ballot box and against 



16 

the flag. The flag is the symbol of national unity and 
national sovereignty. It belongs to no state, and to no 
administration. The people see in it the life, the honor, 
the power of a Nation, which cannot be broken into 
fragments, "which cannot, but by annihilating, die." 
The blood of all their millions leaps in its red veins ; 
their hopes are in its heaven of stars. The conscious- 
ness of nationality, of a Providential calling and des- 
tiny, something deeper than geography, or trade, or 
constitutional agreement, a soul of Americanism, lies 
at the bottom of this struggle, and has armed our dis- 
puted borders with forests of steel. It is that myste- 
rious sentiment of nationality, running in the blood, 
nourished by all that makes the country worth loving, 
nourished by the memories of to-day, by the liberty, 
the good government, the prosperity of every day, 
which breaks into this struggle, and is to restore our 
unity. 

" While the manners, while the arts 
That mould a nation's soul, 
Still cling around our hearts, 
So long from either beach, 
The voice of blood shall reach, 
More audible than speech, 
' We are one.' " 

Fellow citizens ! it is good for us to be here, to go 
up into the Mount of Remembrance, to take counsel of 
the past and the future, of memories which cannot die, 
of hopes which cannot be disappointed, of the stern 
duties, as well as the patriotic joys of the hour. The 
day is left us, and it comes to us with all its great bur- 



17 

den of meaning and inspiration. Forsworn by the men 

who have madly violated its rich heritage, or stolen by 

them 

" To face the garment of rebellion 

With some fine color that may please the eye," 

it remains here unstained, and it remains for us to keep 
it with more than its ancient honor. The gallant fel- 
lows who stand for us, to-day, along the lines, keeping it 
after some sterner fashion than of a holiday, are to 
make a history not unworthy of that of the Revolution, 
to be remembered with a like grateful reverence by 
our children's children. Let us keep it in sympathy 
alike with the fathers and the sons, glad that the chil- 
dren of the men who burned the Gaspee, and bought 
victory with Perry on Lake Erie, who marched to Fort 
William Henry, and fought with Greene at Monmouth 
and Layfayette at Yorktown, are their heirs in spirit, in 
courage, in great service for America. 

Let us still keep this day in the old spirit of hope. 
Despair does not become us, nor pusillanimity, but 
courage rather, and faith. We have a right to believe, 
under God still with us, in our destiny ; in the destiny 
of free principles, of civilization, of an American nation, 
to hold the field, to have room enough, to live our time. 
If our territory be reduced, our soul shall be enlarged. 
The laws of population, the spirit of the age, the forces 
of spiritual religion, of a better civilization, the Provi- 
dence which works through all will jmsh their way, and 
it is barbarism, and despotism, and anarchy, which must 
3 



18 

go to the wall. Let us take the word of Washington. 
"I do not believe," he says, "I do not believe that Prov- 
idence has done so much for nothing. The Great Gov- 
ernor of the universe has led us too long and too far 
on the road to happiness and glory to forsake us in 
the midst of it." Let us have faith, not so much in 
events as in ideas ; in that great idea, whose deposi- 
tory and incarnation God made this nation to be. Out 
of disintegration, even, by faith, we can reconstruct 
a better order. From all aberrations, like the beau- 
tiful stranger flaming so suddenly on the front of our 
Northern evening, the exorbitant stars will come back, 
and our history shall resume and run its course. 

" Far, like the comet's way through infinite space, 
Stretches the long untravelled path of light 
Into the depths of ages : we may trace, 
Afar, the brightening glory of its flight, 
Till the receding rays are lost to human sight." 

Men of Rhode Island ! the most individual, independ- 
ent of the colonies, born of the stiff, uncomplying spirit 
of Williams, the first to declare independence, and in- 
augurate Revolution, the last to come into the compact 
of national order and union, your local pride and 
the fire of your soul dilated by your narrow bounda- 
ries, — this is your glory, that you have learned to love 
your State in your country ; that America is greater to 
you than Rhode Island ; that you have no choice to 
make between them ; that you have no honor parted 
from hers ; that you are finding your honor in main- 
taining hers with the purse at home, and the flower of 



19 

your sons on the field. Alone, on this narrow spot, 
amidst jealous neighbors, in advance of all the world 
you have wrought out a great principle which illus- 
trates your history. It has become the possession of 
the nation. It is to be the possession and joy of civ- 
ilized man. Nothing remains for us then, but true 
to our traditions, and our principles, to give your- 
selves to the good and glory of our country, and of our 
whole country. If this State is not too small for our 
affections, America is not too large. Large, or small, 
let it be ours to make her pure, to make her free, to 
make her the everlasting home of Liberty resting on 
Law, of Law resting on Kighteousness, of a nation 
great in all virtue, meekly fulfilling a beneficent des- 
tiny, under a Providence, never alienated and never 
forgotten. 



OKDER OF EXEECISES. 



1. MUSIC — by Shepard's Cornet Band. 

2. SINGING — by a Select Choir— from the High School 

and Grammar Schools — under the direction of 
Setii Sumner, Esq., Teacher of Vocal Music : 

GOD BLESS OUR NATIVE LAND. 

God bless our native land ! 
'Firm may she ever stand, 

Through storm and night : 
When the wild tempests rave, 
Ruler of winds and wave, 
Do Thou our country save, 
By Thy great might. 

For her our prayer shall rise 
To God, above the skies ; 

On him we wait. 
Thou who art ever nigh, 
Guarding with watchful eye, 
To thee aloud we cry, 

God save the State. 

3. PRAYER, by the Rev. A. H. Clapp, Pastor of the 

Beneficent Congregational Chuch. 



22 

4. READING OF THE DECLARATION OF INDE- 

PENDENCE, by N. W. DeMunn, Principal of the 
Benefit Street Grammar School. 

5. SINGING, by the Select Choir : 

FIRMLY STAND, MY NATIVE LAND. 

Firmly stand, firmly stand, 

My native land ! 
Firmly stand, firmly stand, 

My native land ! 
True in heart and true in hand, 

All that's lovely cherish. 
Thus shall God remain thy friend ; 
Then shall heaven thy walls defend, 

Freeedom, freedon, freedom shall not perish ! 
Firmly stand, firmly stand, my native land, my native land ! 

Safely dwell, safely dwell, 

My native land ! 
Safely dwell, safely dwell, 

My native land ! 
May thy sons united stand, 

Firm and true forever ! 
God forbid the day should rise, 
When 'tis said our freedom dies : 

Freedom, freedom, freedom, die, — O never ! 
Firmly stand, firmly stand, my native land, my native land ! 

Sing for joy, sing for joy, 

My native land ! 
Sing for joy, sing for joy, 

My native land ! 
In thee dwells a noble band, 

All thy weal to cherish ! 
God with might will guard thee round, 
While thy steps in truth are found. 

Freedom, freedom, freedom, shall not perish ! 
Firmly stand, firmly stand, my native land, my native land I 



23 

6. ORATION, by Rev. Dr. Samuel L. Caldwell, Pastor 

of the First Baptist Church. 

7. SINGING, by the Select Choir : 

STAR SPANGLED BANNER ! 

Oh ! say can you see by the dawn's early light, 

What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming ; 
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, 

O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming. 
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, 
Gave proof, thro' the night, that our flag was still there ; 
Oh, say does the star spangled banner yet wave, 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave ! 

On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep, 
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes ; 

What is that which the breeze o'er the towering sweep, 
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses ? 

Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream ; 

"lis the star-spangled banner, oh ! long may it wave, 

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, 

That the havoc of war, and the battle's confusion, 
A home and a country should leave us no more ? 

Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps pollution. 
No refuge could save the hierling and slave, 
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave : 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave, 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 

Oh ! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 

Between their loved home and the war's desolation : 
Bless'd with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land 
Praise the power that has made and preserved us a nation. 
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
And this be our motto, " In God is our Trust ;" 
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave, 
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 

8. BENEDICTION, by the Rev. A. H. Clapp. 



i TRRftRY OF CONGRESS 

■Iff. 

011 801 I 'f * 



